A Technical History of the SEI

Undergraduate Software Engineering Curriculum
The Challenge: Lack of Curriculum Guidance for Undergraduate Software
Engineering Education
As software engineering became prominent in the 1970s and 1980s, both as a discipline and as a
profession, there was little direction or guidance on how to prepare for a career as a software engineer.
Through the 1970s, the emphasis in software development was on programming and testing,
with little attention to architecture, quality control, process,
and the discipline expected in a major engineering
The View from Others
activity.
The early SEI education effort focused its work on developing
support for a professional master’s degree in
software engineering [Gibbs 1989]. It soon became clear
that the curriculum modules aimed at the master’s level
could be adapted to support undergraduate-level work.
Drexel University has long been a
leader in computing education.
The University created a master’s
degree in software engineering in
1997 and followed that effort with
a bachelor’s degree in software
engineering in 2001. Both of these
degrees generated considerable
discussion and some strong differences
of opinion among the faculty.
The role of the SEI in establishing
the importance of software
engineering education was very
useful in advancing the effort to
create degree programs. In addition,
participation in the WGSEET,
and availability of all the work
products already mentioned provided
an excellent vehicle for
knowledge sharing to ensure that
the Drexel degree programs were
in synch with the evolving concepts
of software engineering education.
– Dr. Gregory W. Hislop,
Professor, Drexel University
By the 1990s, the educational community was accepting
the idea of software engineering as a separate discipline.
In its study and analysis of software engineering’s maturity
as an engineering discipline, the SEI found that in
the U.S. there were approximately 20 universities offering
a master’s degree in software engineering, but there
were no bachelor’s degree programs in software engineering
[Ford 1996]. (In 1996, Rochester Institute of
Technology established the first Bachelor of Science in
Software Engineering (BSSE) degree program in the
United States.) Undergraduate computer science programs
typically contained little or no software engineering
material beyond the unit or module development
level; there was no meaningful coverage of software requirements,
architecture, quality, process, or management
topics. In addition, the SEI observed that there was
a great variety of educational backgrounds among practicing
software engineers, few with formal preparation
in software engineering; ABET had not established program
criteria for software engineering; and there was no
published code of ethics for software engineering. The
SEI concluded that initial professional education of software engineers was in the ad hoc stage.
A Solution: Development and Dissemination of Curriculum Guidance
The SEI approached the curriculum challenge as it has many others—namely, engage the stakeholders
in an effort to meet the challenge. For the past 20 years, the ACM and the IEEE Computer
Society have engaged in joint efforts to develop curriculum guidelines for undergraduate programs
in computing—computer engineering, computer science, information systems, information
technology, and software engineering. Although the 1991 ACM/IEEE-CS computing curriculum
CMU/SEI-2016-SR-027 | SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INSTITUTE | CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY 69
Distribution Statement A: Approved for Public Release; Distribution is Unlimited